Sunday 12th February, day two of the NSW State Rowing Championships continued as per day one with Sydney University crews performing well in all their events and defending successfully the 2005 Overall Championship Pointscore. The final result at 4.25 pm Sunday was Sydney University 68.5 points, University of Qld 34 points and Sydney Rowing Club 26 points. The day finished with the Men?s Championship Eight and SUBC made it two in a row with an all the way win to come in 6.35 seconds ahead of UTS with Uni of Qld about one second astern of UTS. Sydney Uni got a flyer of a start and had pulled out a length by the 250 metre mark going over the opening 500 in 1.24.80 to lead UQ. Pace among the leading crews was closely matched in the second 500 with all three front-runners recording around 1.29.5 for this section. At the 1000 metre mark cox and coach Rabjohns called for a push and our crew took an extra 1.5 seconds from UTS and 3 seconds from UQ as they closed on the 1500 metre point. Stroked by 2005 National A rep Mat Ryan Sydney Uni sat comfortably in front and powered to a comfortable win with UTS overtaking UQ to claim second place.
Just a few minutes earlier our Sydney Uni Women had come from well back to challenge UTS in the final 500 metres of the Women?s Championship eights. Coming from nearly a length down at the 500 and 1000 metre points Sydney Uni finished quickly but there was not enough of the race left to catch UTS who claimed the championship by 0.8 seconds.
In earlier races Cam Girdlestone, member of the 2005 Aussie Junior Four stroked his crew to victory in both the Men?s U19 Quad and Four ? a great effort from Cam and his crew with the events only about six races apart.
Elsa O?Hanlon continued her great form when she teamed with Kylie Grant to take out the Women?s Lightweight Elite Double sculls for Sydney Uni. Just an hour or two earlier Kylie and Elsa had combined with Burruston of ANU and Bain of Mosman to win the Women?s Elite Lightweight Quad.
Showing that not having to worry about work helps Dan Noonan, now at the AIS had an outstanding regatta. After finishing 2nd in the final of the Elite single scull on Saturday he teamed with Craig Jones to win the Elite Double scull and with Jones, Ellice Flint and McBryde to add another championship in the Elite Quad. To top off a great weekend Dan was a key member of the winning Elite Sydney Uni men?s eight.
Sarah Phillips and Laura Polin took out the U21 Women?s Pair championship by nearly ten seconds while the men?s U21 pairs went down to UQ finishing 2nd and 3rd. Wilson, Clyne, Pragnell and Allsop were untroubled with take out the Elite Coxed four. Lightweights Oli Zuk and James Wilmott teamed up with Drummoyne to win the Elite Lightweight Four with our young lightweights third, only 4 seconds back.
Brooke Pratley is improving all the time and she combined with the enemy, MUBC to record a strong win and great time in the Elite Women?s Double and in the same event Liz Kell continued her return to competition with a bronze medal.
Other good performances were Oliver Mahony in the winning crew of the Elite lightweight Quad and our own SUBC four of Zuk, Wilmott, Townsend and Alexander in gaining the silver.
At the end of day two Sydney Uni with the three amigos in charge, Mo (AB), Larry , Marty Rabjohns and Curly ( Phil Bourginoun) had trained, planned, sweated, schemed and with the assistance of a great bunch of dedicated athletes had put Sydney University rowing in top place at the 2006 Championships. Well done Sydney Uni team.
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